(Closed) Dog owners, do you go camping with your pooch?

This is totally not wedding related, but FI and I are planning a camping trip at the end of the month. I haven’t been camping in years, so that alone should make this trip interesting. We have a wonderful black and tan coonhound and we are excited to bring him on his first big forest trip. He’s fairly well behaved but very sensitive coonie. He still gets skittish around loud noises or shouting (he’s a rescue- we got him as a puppy). He also has excellent prey drive and trying to redirect him from a scent or animal is darn near impossible.

FI and I are debating on spending the money for an electronic shock collar. I’m worried that if he catches scent of an animal or we encounter a bear we won’t be able to control or recall him. But I’m worried that using a shock collar would hurt him and scare him even more. We don’t use choker collars on him or use any punative measures in training (I don’t believe in it). These collars are a couple hundred dollars and I’m curious if they work well. Do any bees here use these collars with their dogs in the woods?

We’ve gone camping with our shelter dog and it’s always hilarious. She is a mix of husky and some type of hunting hound so you would think she would LOVE camping… but in fact, she hides in our tent the entire weekend! We take a blow-up mattress (wimps, I know) and she attempts to stay on it until we go to bed then she begrugingly goes to her bed. We tried tieing her up while we’re outside and she just whined to go back in the tent.

As for your pooch, I’m assuming you won’t be at an actual campground but a site you find in the woods? Most campground sites require dogs be on a leash so that solves your problem, you just tie the leash around the picnic table or some other pole (places near me have poles to keep your bags elevated from bears). If you are in the middle of the woods, we have a shock collar that’s a portable fence type that we use at home, so we brought that and hooked it up to the car. But as I said before, she whined for the tent.

coffeedrinker: I JUST goy back from camping with our rescue. We got her as a puppy, but same as your furbaby a little nervous with loud noises and impossible to call when she gets focussed on something.

I suggest keeping him leashed until you can trust him. The more you take him out the better he’ll be. Ours still acts up from time to time, but usually she’s so tired from all the activity throughout the day she’s better behaved haha. I’ve also found because the noises scare her sometimes if she hears something she’ll run back to us for protection. Win-win. Good luck camping! and have fun!!

coffeedrinker: Pretty much all of our local campsites require dogs to be on leashes, however there is usually no-one there to enforce that rule so they usually just roam free. Our dog is great with ppl but not great with other dogs unless introduced correctly. For this reason we do not take her to established campgrounds, and only taker her camping with us if we do a backcountry camping trip where we know there wont be anyone around. Thats the kind of camping we prefer though…

I wouldn’t use a shock collar on a sensitive dog. They have a time and a place, but you really need to train him on it before using it or else he will hate the thing and may act out even worse. I would just bring a long leash or two (our dog likes to bite through them if shes tied up) to tie him up to a tree/table/car. There is one brand- Lupine- that is a little more expensive but is 100% guaranteed for life- if your dog bites it, or it is damaged in any way, period, they will replace it for free. We paid like $25-$30 for the leash but have already had it replaced for free 3 times in a few years so it was sooo worth it!

I don’t have a dog, but I go running, mountain biking, and camping with my friends and their dogs off leash all the time. They all swear by the shock collars! I don’t think it traumatizes them at all, and after a while they won’t even misbehave when the collar is on, period.

Everywhere we camped this summer required the dogs to be leashed. Our dogs had never been camping before so we were worried too since they like to chase animals. We didn’t have any problems at all…it seemed like the dogs were weirded out about camping and wanted to stay close to us as much as possible…and our dogs are hyper pit bulls that live in the mountains with 25 acres to run around on.

The only experience I have with shock collars is with the kind that’s used for barking. They were effective, but I didn’t like to use them because a piece of my heart broke every time I heard my dogs yelp from getting shocked. I have a friend who uses the kind you are talking about on her ten month old gigantic pup and it works for her.

You should leash your dog always, no matter what and most camp sites require it anyway. We take both our dogs camping. We have a small Chihuahua mix whos almost 3 and we have a young 15 month old Male Boxer whos very active. They are collared and put on long leash leads in our site. I would never let my dog off leash in a camping ground, no matter how trained they are.

I did when I had a Boston terrier, and all campgrounds asked that the dogs would be leashed at all times. It’s quite understandable, as a non-dog owner now, I wouldn’t appreciate having an unknown dog of any size running around on my tent site, potentially causing damages to my stuff, or even, me stepping into a turd when I go to the bathroom at night. Keeping your dogs leashed is a rule made for all campers to have a good experience, and even if it is not explicitely required in the campground rules, I believe it’s being considerate of others to do so.

We take our dog camping a lot. He isn’t skittish, but he loves to run around and sniff everything. He doesn’t go far from us though. We bring a very long leash and tie down. He sleeps in the tent with us.

Shock collars are meant to correct dogs from known bad behaviors. Using one on a dog who does not have a defined line to cross will only cause confusion. Keep your dog on a leash until you trust it.